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Function documentationMaintenance of Rights

 

You define the rights to an Intellectual Property (IP) according to time (validity period) and rights dimension.

Example Example

You acquire the rights to broadcast a movie on Pay TV (Rights dimension: Market). However you are only allowed to broadcast the movie:

  • In Germany and Austria (Rights dimension: Territory)

  • In German and in English (Rights dimension: Language)

  • Between January 1 and December 15

End of the example.

Example Example

You own unrestricted license rights to a book. You restrict the rights to be exploited in a license sales contract that you sign with a Canadian publisher as follows:

  • Validity: January 1 to December 31

  • Rights dimensions:

    • Market: Books

    • Territory: Canada

    • Language: English

End of the example.

Integration

The rights maintenance function is available in several applications within Intellectual Property Management. You maintain rights in one of the following applications:

  • Intellectual Property (Operations work center)

  • License Acquisition Contract (License Acquisition work center)

  • License Sales Contract (License Sales work center)

  • Rights Availability Analysis (Rights Availability work center)

During contract maintenance, you can maintain the rights that you want to sell at contract item level.

Prerequisites

You have started the process to create an IP, contract, or rights availability request.

You have made the following settings in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management under:

  • Start of the navigation path Industry-Specific Solutions Next navigation step Media Next navigation step Intellectual Property Management Next navigation step Rights and Royalties Dimensions Next navigation step Define Rights and Royalties Dimensions End of the navigation path

  • Start of the navigation path Industry-Specific Solutions Next navigation step Media Next navigation step Intellectual Property Management Next navigation step Master Data Next navigation step Product Next navigation step Define Hierarchical Attributes End of the navigation path

Features

Rights Dimensions

Your rights to an intellectual property might be limited to specific dimensions, such as market, language or territory. For example, you might have the rights to a story, but only when it is published as a hardcover book (a value of the Market dimension), published in the United States (a value of the Territory dimension) and published in English (a value of the Language dimension).

A rights dimension is an attribute whose available values indicate how far your rights to an IP extend. The Territory dimension for example, contains continents, countries and other regions. Selection of specific countries would indicate that your rights to the IP extend to those countries.

Examples of rights dimensions include:

  • Market: describe the market or exploitation type in which an IP is sold (for example hardcover book, DVD, magazine, soft-cover book)

  • Territory: describe the territory in which an IP is sold (for example Europe, Asia, North America)

  • Language: describe the language in which an IP is available (for example German, English, French, Japanese)

You can enter rights dimension values as follows:

  • Using the value help

    When you use the value help, the system opens a tree list and prompts you to select the nodes that correspond to the values for your rights dimensions.

    Values can be assigned hierarchically. For example in the Territory rights dimension, continents are assigned a higher level, while individual countries are sub-nodes of the continents.

    If you select a node to which additional nodes or end nodes in the hierarchy are assigned, the system also selects the nodes or end nodes for these lower levels. For more information, see Hierarchical Attributes.

  • Manually entering the value

    For information about manually entering rights, see Manual Entry of Rights.

Configuring Your own Rights Dimensions

You can define rights dimensions as well as their values; however a dimension can only be defined from an existing Intellectual Property attribute. For example, you can create the IP attributes Season and include the values Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, or alternatively, Wet, Dry (for tropical zones). You can then define this attribute as a rights dimension.

You define rights dimensions by way of the Define Rights and Royalties Dimensions Customizing activity (in SAP Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, select Start of the navigation path Industry-Specific Solutions Next navigation step Media Next navigation step Intellectual Property Management Next navigation step Rights and Royalties Dimensions Next navigation step Define Rights and Royalties Dimensions End of the navigation path).

Note Note

You also use this activity to define royalties dimensions, which also can only be defined from an existing IP attribute. The system allows you to define up to six rights and royalties dimensions.

End of the note.
Rights Group

A rights group is comprised of a combination of defined rights dimensions. You can define one or more rights groups for an Intellectual Property.

For example, you might define the following rights groups for your IP, Story1

  • Rights group 1

    Market: Hardcover book

    Territory: Germany, France

    Language: German, French, English

  • Rights group 2

    Market: Magazine

    Territory: USA, Japan

    Language: English, Japanese

From a business perspective this rights configuration implies that your rights to Story1 are limited to hardcover books in Germany and France, written in German, English and French, and to magazines in the United States and Japan, written in English and Japanese. You do not have the rights for example, for a magazine in Germany or a hardcover book in the United States.

You can add, edit, or remove rights groups when you edit the rights scope to which they belong.

Rights Scope

A rights scope is comprised of a combination of defined rights groups.

You can create a rights group to add to a scope. All rights groups in a rights scope have the same validity period, and all of their attributes, such as the exclusivity type are identical.

Rights Validity

The rights validity is the period in which the specific rights to an IP are valid. You define the rights validity in the rights scope, by way of the Valid From and Valid To date types.

Note Note

When you define a license sales or license acquisition contract and add an IP, the rights validity of the added IP is inherited from the contract header. You can change these dates if required, however the dates cannot extend beyond the Valid From and Valid To dates of the contract

End of the note.

More Information

Rights Maintenance in the Contract

Rights Maintenance in Intellectual Property